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Volume 18 | Issue 15 | Number 11 | Article ID 5445 | Aug 01, 2020
The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus
Image Management over COVID-19 Management
Samrat Choudhury
government that promised Indian citizenship
on relatively easier terms to Hindu, Buddhist,
Abstract: Till March 13 t h 2020, India’s Sikh, Jain, Parsi, and Christian immigrants from
government was assuring citizens that the Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On
coronavirus disease was not a health January 30, news headlines were dominated by
emergency. Preparations soon proved images of a young Hindu fundamentalist armed
inadequate. Bigotry, superstition, and poor with a handgun opening fire on unarmed,
governance worsened an increasingly bad mostly Muslim, students protesting against the
situation in which government efforts to Citizenship Amendment Act in Delhi’s Jamia
suppress unfavorable news censored Milia Islamia university, while a long line of
information that would have been useful in policemen in uniform stood behind him, looking
containing the disease. A lockdown imposed
on. The single case of the invisible COVID-19,
without warning crashed the economy and
then still restricted mainly to China, was far
caused immense suffering to millions. Poor
away in the public imagination.
internal migrant workers were worst affected.
Many died trying to walk home hundreds of It was probably distant and remote even in the
miles away in the punishing heat of India’s political leadership’s imagination.
summer. The lockdown was lifted with the
COVID-19 curve heading sharply upward. On January 31, a day after the first case was
reported, the country’s Directorate General of
Foreign Trade passed an order banning the
export of masks and PPEs. On February 8, the
ban was lifted. The original notification was
India’s first case of the new novel coronavirus “amended to the extent that items such as
was reported from the southern state of Kerala surgical masks/disposable masks and all gloves
on January 30, 2020. The news was announced except NBR gloves are allowed freely for
by the Indian government’s Press Information export,’’ said the DGFT in its new order.
Bureau in a release that contained three brief Newspapers reported that the decision was
sentences of Indian bureaucratese: “One taken to help China combat the coronavirus.
positive case of Novel Coronavirus patient, of a Since India and China do not enjoy the most
student studying in Wuhan University, has been fraternal of relations, the overturning of the
reported in Kerala”, it said. “The patient has DGFT decision was decidedly odd.
tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in
isolation in the hospital. The patient is stable On February 10, the news agency Press Trust
and is being closely monitored.” The news did of India reported from Beijing that “India has
not cause any great excitement or alarm; the cleared some consignments of medical gear
country was then in the throes of the biggest placed by China to combat the deadly
protests it had seen since the early 1990s, over coronavirus after setting aside export bans on
a contentious new modification to the country’s all kinds of personal protection equipment,
citizenship laws by the ruling Hindu nationalist Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri said
1
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here Monday. The decision came a day after Home Minister Amit Shah, allegedly providing
Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a letter to cover and support to the Hindu rioters in
President Xi Jinping offering solidarity and several places. The rioting claimed 53 lives.
assistance to deal with the coronavirus
outbreak in China that has claimed over 900 It was therefore only after Trump’s departure
lives” (PTI, 2020). and the end of the rioting that the focus began
to shift towards the coronavirus response. On
The export of millions of pieces of PPEs and March 13, senior officials of the Health, Home,
masks from India worth vast sums of money and Civil Aviation ministries held a press
resumed, and continued apace. Meanwhile the conference in Delhi to say that COVID-19 was
country and its media remained preoccupied “not a health emergency” (Srinivasan 2020).
with the bitter and vicious battle centred on the PPE exports were finally banned again on
citizenship law, the no less controversial March 19. By then, the disease had spread to
National Register of Citizens, and a lockdown 160 countries, with 191,127 cases, according to
in Kashmir where, following abrogation of the World Health Organisation data.
special law governing the place and an internal
redrawing of maps, the entire political class “While other countries took measures to not
including former Chief Ministers and Union only ban export of PPE products but also raw
Ministers had been placed under house arrest. materials, it did not occur to India to do that till
Only the planned visit to India by US President 19 March,” Sanjiv Kumar, the chairman of the
Donald Trump, his first to the country after Preventive Wear Manufacturers Association of
winning the presidential elections, created a India, told The Caravan magazine. “In the
flutter even amidst the raging countrywide meantime, Indian companies continued
protests. Mr Trump, who visited on February catering to foreign governments, which were
24, told a campaign rally in Colorado three stockpiling. We also repeatedly raised the need
days before his arrival that he had heard there for creating stockpiles of protective gear which
were going to be between six and ten million were ignored… We are now facing a crisis
people lining the streets to greet him on his which is of our own making” (Krishnan 2020).
way to his joint public rally with Prime Minister
Modi in a cricket stadium in Ahmedabad in In many places, doctors and nurses in hospitals
Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Since were forced to improvise PPEs. Photos and
Ahmedabad has a population of around 7 reports began coming in from around the
million, this expectation was difficult to meet, country of frontline medical workers in
but the Modi government put in an effort to hospitals dealing with novel coronavirus cases
drum up the numbers and put on a big show, having nothing better than raincoats and
for which eventually more than 100,000 people motorcycle helmets as protection. On April 6,
were brought in. By then, COVID-19 cases had the Resident Doctors’ Association of the All
already been reported from 28 countries apart India Institute of Medical Sciences, the
from China. country’s premier public sector hospital, wrote
an open letter to Prime Minister Modi to say,
The following day, Trump and Modi were in “Our frontline healthcare workers - doctors,
Delhi for a scheduled summit meeting when nurses, and other supportive staff - have come
communal riots erupted in the city where forward with their problems and issues related
sporadic violence had begun earlier over the to the availability of PPE, COVID-19 testing
protests against the Citizenship Amendment equipment, and quarantine facilities on social
Act. Hindu and Muslim mobs clashed with media. The officials should view these inputs
Delhi Police, who report to Modi’s closest aide, constructively. Instead of appreciating their
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efforts towards the welfare of their peers and workers to treat patients. Since March we have
patients, they have received a harsh backlash” been writing and fighting for the safety of
(The Wire 2020). The letter also called for “all hostel premises, poor sanitation, lack of proper
punishments to be withdrawn”. Medical staff quarantine protocol and need for adequate
who had publicly complained of the lack of testing,” Dr Rajkumar, the AIIMS Resident
PPEs had evidently been dealt with sternly. Dr Doctors Association General Secretary, told
Srinivas Rajkumar, the RDA’s general News18 after Lal’s death. The report
secretary, told India Today TV the association mentioned that the number of healthcare
received complaints every day about medical workers at the institute who had been infected
staff being harassed by the management of by then was around 195 (News18.com 2020). A
their respective hospitals for raising legitimate day after the article was published, the RDA
concerns (Pandey 2020). issued a notice expelling Dr Rajkumar from the
body. The article was subsequently modified to
After previously exporting PPEs to China, India deny that healthcare staff were being infected
had already switched to importing PPEs from at work, and its headline changed to reflect the
there by this time. On April 5, a consignment of official version that all was well.
170,000 PPE kits arrived from China. However,
around 50,000 of these kits failed quality tests. By June, India was facing a shortage of
Yet, the exporters and importers, who are often healthcare workers to treat patients, as Dr.
the same people, managed some good business Rajkumar had predicted.
both ways.
The bad news surrounding PPEs was eventually
washed away by a sudden flood of good news in Table 1
early May: “From zero, India now produces
around 2 lakh PPE kits per day,” news agency Date Cases Deaths
Asia News International reported on May 5. Feb 1 1 0
This statement was repeated by Modi himself in
an address to the nation a week later. “When
March 1 3 0
the crisis began, not a single PPE was being April 1 1,636 38
manufactured in India. N-95 masks were being May 1 35,043 1,147
manufactured in negligible quantity. Today, the
June 1 190,535 5,394
situation is such that India is manufacturing 2
lakh PPE kits and N95 masks each per day. We
are able to do so because India has turned a Source: World Health Organisation;
crisis into an opportunity. India’s vision to figures are cumulative totals
convert this crisis into an opportunity is going
to prove influential as we become more self-
reliant,” the PM said (Verma 2020).
Such dreams of national glory would not help
The PPE story contains in microcosm the
people like Heera Lal, senior sanitation
principal elements that have characterised
supervisor of AIIMS, who died on May 25. “It’s
India’s COVID-19 response. Apart from
not the virus that we are worried about. It’s the
mismanagement, an important element of the
apathy of the government and the AIIMS
response has been suppression of news
administration that worries us. If this
unfavourable to or critical of the government,
continues, we will be short of healthcare
and attempts at fixing the blame on Muslims,
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owing to the detection of a cluster of COVID-19 Mumbai resident, India’s Minister of State for
cases among those who attended a gathering of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas
the Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi in the days Athawale, who earlier in the month had led a
immediately preceding the lockdown. This was rally at the Gateway of India where, in the
supplemented by a public relations pitch whose company of China’s Consul General in Mumbai
thrust from the start was to try and turn the Tang Guocai, he raised slogans of “Corona Go,
country’s COVID-19 response into some sort of Go Corona.”
public event involving the whole country. This
PR pitch was led by Modi himself, through a Indians also tried other innovative methods to
series of televised addresses to the nation. drive away the virus. A group called the Akhil
Bharat Hindu Mahasabha, led by a man named
The first of these addresses was on March 19. Swami Chakrapani, organised a cow urine
In that address, Mr. Modi called upon the party in Delhi where true believers were given
people of India to observe a daylong “public small earthen cups of cow urine to drink. The
curfew” on March 22, advising social cow urine therapy was not restricted to a
distancing and staying home, and requesting lunatic fringe. Similar events were organised at
everyone to go to their balconies, doors, or various places around the country by members
windows at 5 PM to clap, beat plates, and ring of the ruling BJP. In Kolkata, which is ruled by
bells as a mark of gratitude to those hospital an opposition party, a BJP party worker,
and airline staff who were working in the midst Narayan Chatterjee, was arrested after a man
of the pandemic. At 5, around the country, who consumed the cow urine fell ill. The party’s
enthusiastic Modi supporters emerged out of local leaders including its West Bengal unit
their homes clapping and clanging pots and president, Dilip Ghosh, made statements
pans. In several cities, there were also against the arrest and attested to the
processions of hundreds riding motorcycles or miraculous properties of cow urine, which is
simply walking and dancing through the held to be holy by orthodox Hindus. The belief
streets. Photos and videos showed that is backed by Ayurveda, an ancient Hindu
processions in at least two places in India’s system of medicine, in which cow urine and
most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were led dung are two among five constituents of a tonic
by the local district magistrate and senior called Panchgavya – cow milk, butter, and ghee
police officials. or clarified butter are the other three – which
has also been touted as a cure for the
coronavirus. Dr. Vallabh Kathiria, Chairman of
Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog, a government
Scientism organisation launched by the Modi government
in 2019, told the Ahmedabad Mirror that
Many people banging pots and pans had been
clinical trials of the wonder drug would be
convinced by a viral WhatsApp post that the
conducted in 10 hospitals in India, starting with
sound would produce vibrations that kill the
the government-run Civil Hospital in Rajkot in
coronavirus. The notion was evidently shared
Gujarat, the constituency of the state’s chief
by prominent persons, including the actor
minister (Sanghavi 2020). Other ayurvedic
Amitabh Bachchan, who tweeted on March 22
cures for coronavirus, promoted by Patanjali, a
to his 40.5 million followers that clapping and
company founded by a yoga guru turned
“shankh vibrations”, meaning the vibrations
industrialist with close ties to the ruling party,
produced by blowing conch shells,
Baba Ramdev, were also allowed clinical trials
“reduce/destroy virus potency.” Mr Bachchan’s
in Jaipur and Indore, although the permission
approach to driving away the virus was actually
in Indore was later withdrawn following
more sophisticated than that of his fellow
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protests. The trials in Jaipur met with from this situation, but even companies
miraculous success, according to Patanjali, and manufacturing HCQ struggled to keep their
100 percent of patients barring those on life production lines going at normal capacity. The
support were completely cured within seven sector as a whole saw an overall slump in
days of treatment with their herbal medicines, production and sales. “Sales have dropped to
which they offered for sale as part of a “divya half. At present, we have reached just 60 per
corona kit”, meaning “divine corona kit”, of cent of the routine sales for May target,” Rajiv
three medicines for an affordable Rs 545 Singhal, secretary general of All India
($7.20) (Kumar 2020). Organisation of Chemists and Druggists
(AIOCD), a body representing 8.5 lakh chemists
However, the cheapest and most freely across India, told The Print (Chandna 2020).
available of all the unorthodox cures, the water New product launches fell from 349 in April
of the river Ganga, which is also held to be holy 2019 to 4 in April 2020. Domestic
by orthodox Hindus, failed to progress to the pharmaceutical companies were barely able to
clinical trials stage after the Indian Council of maintain the flow of their regular products and
Medical Research turned down proposals were operating at 40 to 50 percent of their
forwarded by the National Mission for Clean total capacity. The main reasons cited by
Ganga – a Union government body whose job it manufacturers for this slump were a severe
is to clean up the highly-polluted river – to treat shortage of workers, and a disruption of supply
COVID-19 patients with Ganga water. chains.
One controversial cure that did win the ICMR’s
full backing was hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an
anti-malaria medication that ICMR Lockdown
recommended on March 22 as prophylaxis for
asymptomatic healthcare workers treating On March 24, two days after the daylong
confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients “public curfew” that had concluded in
and family members of such patients. The use cacophonous festivities and processions, Prime
of the drug was subsequently expanded on May Minister Modi addressed the nation once again
22 to include frontline workers such as the in a televised address. Speaking at 8 PM, he
police (Saikia 2020). After President Trump announced that the whole country of 1.3 billion
touted it as potentially “one of the biggest people would go into a complete lockdown for
game-changers in the history of medicine” in a 21 days starting at midnight. People were left
tweet on March 21 – a day before ICMR with four hours in which to prepare for the
recommended its prophylactic use in India – lockdown as best as they could. Movement of
demand for the drug skyrocketed. India is the trucks soon ground to a halt. Separating the
world’s main producer of HCQ, and accounts ones carrying essential goods from those
for 70 percent of global production of the drug. carrying other items was a mammoth task.
Exports were banned by the Directorate Moreover, there was no clarity at ground level
General of Foreign Trade on April 4. The ban on what exactly was considered essential, or
was lifted on April 7 following a call from what was to be done about empty trucks. With
President Trump to Prime Minister Modi. India the cheap highway restaurants known in India
went on to export HCQ to 97 countries over the as ‘dhabas’ being shut down, there was no
next month. place for truckers to eat. Many didn’t even
have water to drink. “Drivers have started
The country’s well-developed pharmaceutical abandoning trucks and hiking back home even
industry might have been expected to profit if these places are 200-300 km from where they
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are,” Bal Malkit Singh, chairman of the All photographed in Dombivili on the outskirts
India Motor Transport Congress told The Times of the city, on their way to Solapur 400 km
of India two days later (TNN 2020). By April 7, away. Source: Debasish Dey
transportation of goods in India had almost
ground to a halt. The daily movement of trucks
had by then fallen to less than 10 percent of
normal levels, according to the All India Motor
Over the next two months, similar reports and
Transport Congress, the umbrella body of
pictures poured in from everywhere. At first it
goods vehicle operators in the country (Sundria
was only men, but by and by entire families,
2020).
with women and babies, and scant belongings,
The human cost of the lockdown revealed itself began the long march home to their villages in
before the economic cost. It was visible in the the punishing heat of the Indian summer in
lines of migrant workers trekking home over scenes reminiscent of Partition. They did not all
hundreds of kilometres. More than 90 percent make it. On May 17, The Hindu ran a report
of India’s workforce is in the unorganised titled “U.P. migrant walking home dies of
sector. There are an estimated 100 million ‘hunger’”, with the word ‘hunger’ in single
internal migrant workers who constitute the quotations, as though it were somehow an
backbone of the labour force in numerous impossibility whose reality could not be
sectors. When the sudden lockdown kicked in, admitted. Two days later, the Press Trust of
millions of daily wagers all over the country, India reported a different case, this time from
especially in its metropolises, were immediately Maharashtra in the country’s west, of a
left without a source of income. “Where will we labourer whose partially decomposed body had
get some food?” Bhole Kumar, a mason at a been found in a remote village. He had been on
construction site who earned Rs 500 ($6.55) a his way home on foot from Pune. Officials cited
day, asked The Wire. “Hunger will kill us starvation as the likely cause of death. From
before the coronavirus” (Agarwal 2020). He Andhra Pradesh in the country’s south, there
was one of a group of five men walking 170 km was a report published in The New Indian
from their workplace in Noida near Delhi to Express on May 22, of a worker from West
Najibabad in Uttar Pradesh. Bengal who had died of sunstroke trying to
walk home from Chennai in the punishing heat
of the Indian summer. The distance from
Chennai to Kolkata is 1,670 km (Express News
Service 2020).
The total number of migrant workers who died
trying to walk home during the lockdown is
difficult to gauge, as reporting from the
country’s interiors is patchy even at the best of
times. An NGO called SaveLIFE (Dutta 2020)
compiled a report according to which 198
migrant workers died in road accidents
between March 25 and May 31. An additional
sixteen migrant workers died when they were
run over by a goods train in Maharashtra on
May 8. They had been walking along the tracks,
Internal migrant workers leaving Mumbai possibly to avoid detection by the police – who
on foot. This particular group was in most places were beating up, arresting,
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detaining or otherwise harassing those trying country’s Gross Domestic Product for the
to walk home for violating the lockdown – and current financial year. The same day, the
had gone to sleep, exhausted, on the wooden Indian analytical firm CRISIL released a report
sleepers of the tracks secure in the belief that titled “Minus five,” making a similar prediction,
trains were not running. stating that “India’s fourth recession since
Independence, first since liberalisation, and
On April 14, Modi announced extension of the perhaps the worst to date is here” (CRISIL
lockdown until May 3. “If we look at corona- 2020). Two days later, global ratings firm
related figures in the world’s big, powerful Standard & Poor’s, of which CRISIL is a
countries, India today is in a very well-managed subsidiary, also forecast a 5 percent
position”, he said. “It is clearly evident from the contraction of the Indian economy for the
experience of the past few days, that we have financial year.
chosen the correct path.” The number of cases
in India then was approaching 11,000, still far With the economy crumbling, Modi appeared
below the numbers in countries such as Italy, once again on TV on May 12. This time he
Spain, and USA. announced an economic relief and stimulus
package of Rs 20 lakh crores, amounting to
By this time, distress had turned into almost 10 percent of India’s GDP. He also made
desperation for many. A crowd of thousands the remarks, mentioned previously, on India
gathered at Bandra station in Mumbai having turned crisis into opportunity through
demanding trains be run so they could get the manufacture of PPEs and masks, issuing a
home. They were dispersed by police who beat call for ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ or ‘Self-Reliant
them with sticks. In Surat in Gujarat, migrant India,’ and asking people to be “vocal for local.”
workers blocked roads and staged a protest. A On closer examination of the details which
group of around 150 migrant workers in were announced by the Finance Minister,
Hyderabad that set off on foot on hearing of the economists found the relief package was
lockdown extension was stopped by police. actually closer to 2 percent of GDP since much
However, the lines of those walking home did of the rest consisted of a repackaging of old
not stop. schemes to boost the headline figure. However,
Modi did announce that day that people would
Their suffering was only the tip of an iceberg of have to learn to live with the virus. An easing of
woes. The Center for Monitoring the Indian the lockdown began just when the coronavirus
Economy, a private think-tank, estimated that curve had begun rising sharply.
122 million people, from informal as well as
formal sectors, were rendered jobless in April
on account of the stringent lockdown. The
jobless rate for the week ending March 3 stood
at 27.1 percent. “A massive 91 million lost their
livelihood in just about a month. This is not just
a mind-boggling number. It is a human tragedy
because these are, perhaps, the most
vulnerable parts of society,” CMIE chief
executive Mahesh Vyas wrote (Vyas 2020).
The lockdown sent the Indian economy into a
tailspin. Global research firm Fitch Ratings, in
an update to its Global Economic Outlook on
May 26, forecast a 5 percent decline in the
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Despite having stopped international flights
since March 22, the country’s authorities led by
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan continued to
insist, even in mid-June, that there was no
community transmission. This made it very
difficult for people to get tested, because
according to the guidelines, only those with
full-blown symptoms, plus a history of foreign
travel and contact with a COVID-19 patient
could be tested, if they had a doctor’s
prescription recommending one. The ostracism
suffered by COVID-19 patients – even funerals
were denied in at least three widely reported
cases – coupled with price-gouging by private
hospitals meant that there were serious
disincentives to getting tested, and little
chances of getting treated even if tests were
positive. The Association of Healthcare
Providers, a body representing private
hospitals in India, suggested a minimum fee of
Rs 15,000 per day for stay in general wards.
A few special trains, named Shramik (meaning
The Central Government Health Scheme, an
labourer) expresses had begun running earlier,
insurance for central government employees,
on May 1, after the scale of the lockdown
has a ceiling of Rs 1000 a day for
disaster became apparent. These increased in
reimbursements on general ward stays. In
frequency. On May 31, V.K.Yadav, the
many cases reported from across the country,
Chairman of India’s Railway Board, told news
patients staying in hospitals for treatment, of
agency ANI in a televised interview that the
COVID-19 or other diseases, were additionally
railways had ferried more than 5.4 million
billed thousands of rupees for exorbitantly
workers to their home states on 4050 trains
priced PPEs. In a country where the per capita
since the beginning of the month. From May
monthly income was Rs 11,254 before the
25, domestic flights resumed. Another 200
economy tanked, private hospitals were out of
trains began to operate from June 1.
reach of the vast majority even after a couple of
Notions of social distancing are fanciful in state governments belatedly imposed price
India. Millions of people, often forced into caps.
crowded spaces, poured out of the cities with
As of mid-June 2020, the numbers are mounting
the worst outbreaks of COVID-19, spreading
rapidly despite relatively limited per capita
the coronavirus into the far corners of the
testing. Reports from Delhi and Mumbai
country. When the lockdown was initially
suggest a shortage of hospital beds. Patients
imposed on March 24, COVID-19 cases were
are dying without treatment after being ferried
still being found only among those who had
from hospital to hospital and denied admission.
arrived from abroad. By June 1, when train
The Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal,
services were restored, India had the seventh
has reacted to these reports by accusing
most COVID-19 cases in the world. It was
hospital administrators of black-market
reporting in excess of 190,000 cases then – and
dealings in hospital beds, and trying to reserve
this number was almost certainly an
10,000 hospital beds for residents of Delhi – a
underestimate (see Table 1).
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move shot down by the Lieutenant Governor. peak expected sometime in July or August.
According to the Economic Survey of Delhi There are clear signs that India’s overstretched
2019-20, the national capital region has a total healthcare facilities are beginning to collapse
of 57,709 hospital beds. The state’s population under the pressure. It is also evident that a lot
was 16.8 million in the 2011 census and is of people are going to die in India before this is
currently estimated at over 19 million over. The case fatality ratio in India has been
(Planning Department, Government of NCT of lower than the global average at 2.8 percent
Delhi 2020). against 5.8 percent worldwide. The reasons for
this low figure are unknown. Even if the figure
A shortage of doctors and nurses has also is taken at face value, it implies that India is
begun to bite. The country has long had well facing a considerable disaster. With
below WHO recommended numbers of doctors containment measures having failed, and the
and nurses per thousand population. The level economy in far too much trouble to allow a
of training of those who work in the sector was repeat of a full lockdown, the only way
also a matter of some concern. For instance, a COVID-19 can be checked at present – no
WHO study on healthcare workers in India vaccine is in sight – is if the population
found that only 42.7 percent of allopathic approaches herd immunity. The minimum
doctors in India actually had a medical percentage of the population that would have
qualification (Anand and Fan, 2016). Some of to recover from the disease for this to happen
the most highly trained of these healthcare is still not clear, but estimates range from
workers are at AIIMS in Delhi. There, by June 50-70%. (D’Souza and Dowdy 2020) Since
4, more than 480 workers including 19 doctors India’s population is 1.3 billion, that would
and 38 nurses, apart from attendants, mean 1.9 million deaths. It is evident from the
sanitation staff, lab technicians and security current situation that many of the deaths will
staff, had tested positive for the virus, and the not be recorded as COVID-19 deaths because
nurses had begun to hold protest patients will simply not be tested or treated.
demonstrations (Shukla 2020). They were
having difficulty working in airtight PPEs for This grim situation will influence approaching
six hour shifts without air conditioning in the elections in two large battlefield states, Bihar
heat of the Delhi summer, where maximum and West Bengal. The treatment endured by
temperatures exceeded 47 degrees celsius. migrant workers from these states is already a
Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital, a political issue. The growing economic distress
treatment facility for COVID-19 patients, also and burden of illness will also increasingly
saw a brief strike by nurses protesting work become electoral issues. The ruling BJP at the
conditions on June 1. In Hyderabad, around centre has tried, and will probably continue to
300 doctors working at the Gandhi Hospital, try, to use all means at its disposal, including
the main COVID-19 treatment facility in the its indirect control of large sections of the
city, went on strike on June 10 after one of Indian media, to shift the blame elsewhere. In
them was assaulted by relatives of a patient the early days of the outbreak in India their
who died. efforts were aimed at blaming Muslims for the
spread of the disease after the detection of the
Tablighi Jamaat cluster of cases. BJP Chief
Ministers of four states – Gujarat, Uttar
Implications Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand –
made public statements ascribing the rise of
As of June 11, 2020, India rose to number four
COVID-19 numbers in their states to the
in the global ranking of the pandemic outbreak,
Tablighis. It is probable that social fault-lines in
and the number of cases is still rising with a
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India between Hindus and Muslims will deepen
further as a result of the politics of COVID-19
scapegoating. References
The Hindu-Muslim fault-line is hardly the only Agarwal, Kabir (2020). ‘Hunger can kill us
one in India. There’s also a very visible rich- before the virus: Migrant workers on the march
poor divide. The poor blamed the coronavirus during lockdown
on the rich people traveling to and from foreign (https://thewire.in/%20labour/coronavirus-lockd
countries and spreading it at home. It has since own-migrant-workers-walking-home)’, March
caused untold miseries for the poor. This may 27. Accessed June 5, 2020.
fuel crime. Additionally, although leftist politics
in India have been pushed to the electoral Anand, Sudhir and Fan, Victoria (2016). ‘The
margins, they are not completely extinct, and Health Workforce in India’, World Health
have gained fresh respectability in some places Organisation.
during this crisis. Several state governments,
Chandna, Himani (2020). ‘Why India saw only 4
with the encouragement of the centre, tried to
pharma products launched in April, its lowest
dilute the country’s labour laws regulating
count ever
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This article is a part of the Special Issue: Pandemic Asia, Part II. See the Table of
Contents here (http://www.apjjf.org/2020/15/APJ.html).
See the Table of Contents for Part I (http://0.0.7.228/14/APJ.html).
Readers of this special may be also interested in another COVID-19 special, Vulnerable
Populations Under COVID-19 in Japan (https://apjjf.org/2020/18/ToC.html), edited by
David H. Slater.
Samrat Choudhury is a columnist and author. A former editor of newspapers in Delhi,
Mumbai, and Bengaluru, he now lives in Kolkata where he writes a column for Firstpost.com
(https://www.firstpost.com/). He is the co-founder Partition Studies Quarterly
(http://www.partitionstudiesquarterly.org/), an online journal that aims to document Partition
effects in Northeast India, and Editor of East Wind, a magazine that focuses on Northeast
India and its near-abroad. His first book, The Urban Jungle, was published by Penguin in
2011.
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